Originally posted by rjpalmer
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On that assumption, yes, an A series is the far most probable as they are the most common. I was just listing all the options, which unfortunately for us shows the vast majority of which end up at the same standard ratio, making it impossible to recover the size of the paper based upon the ratio alone unless we end up with one of the rare unique ones. And, it appears we do not.
If I'm wrong, and your measurements were actually 1:1.141 (which I can't see that being the case, as the letter does not look square enough), that would be more interesting. It might suggest the author trimmed the paper by cutting off a strip from the top or bottom.
Having done so could point to a wealthier author (one who has some sort of personalized paper, with their name/address on it), or to someone with access to paper that has some sort of header or footer (i.e. military, medical, lawyer, etc). Of course, trimming the paper would not be definitive proof of that as it might also be argued to be consistent with a poorer author, who simply removed a partially used section as they can't afford to waste paper, etc. But, regardless of the reason one puts forth, it would have been another behaviour the author chose to do, and explanations would have to consider that choice; it imposes one more, albeit weak, constraint upon theory.
The more information we have about what actions were taken, the more we have to constrain our explanations. The possible actions not done are simply less informative - an infinite number of things were not done, making each thing not done uninformative, but those that were done, those are the tracks to follow.
Of course, not everyone accepts being constrained, and instead choose to ignore the bits that don't work for their idea.
- Jeff
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